Letters, Week of July 10, 2014

Moving to a central location helps the bottom line, but I’m not sure it helps make a local paper a truly local paper.

As to consolidating Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Manhattan papers under one roof, I think we get it — build a New York City paper to challenge the Daily News and The Post. Let’s hope it paves the way for a paper that delivers actual news (not Post news — mere incitement on issues that we need thoughtful deliberation about), investigative reporting that challenges the real powers that be (the 1%) and factual information for readership.

What will matter is how much autonomy, intelligence and integrity the reporters are allowed or encouraged to exhibit — not necessarily who owns the paper.

I guess this ends News Corp.’s foray into influencing political outcomes through local media. It was a smart strategy for molding viewpoints to their corporate ends. It’s just that once you forget that local papers are loved because they are local — you kind of miss their point.K Webster

Before moving to Staten Island in 1989, I’d spent most of my life in the Village, where I was both a reader of and contributing writer for The Villager.

Perhaps you would consider a Staten Island publication? The Staten Island Advance is putting its resources into downsizing print publishing in favor of a digital version.

Much as I love trees, I also favor print publications. In junior high school, I sold The New York Times to classmates. Out here on Staten Island, our own poetry program, Ten Penny Players, celebrates its 35th year of poetry publication today.

There is much value in the word printed on paper, archived in libraries (public and private).

To The Editor:Re “Claws came out as complex fought over L.E.S. feral cats” (news article, July 3):

It is disgusting that toxoplasmosis continues to be used as a scare tactic by people who have obviously not researched how it is transmitted. In a nutshell, if you don’t eat cat poop or handle it, you will not get toxo. Period.Susan LoeschLoesch is a member, Feline Rescue and Rehome (FuRR)

Lost cat colony’s lessons

To The Editor:Re “Claws came out as complex fought over L.E.S. feral cats” (news article, July 3):

I’m wondering what the conversations were as this was happening to fight off the false scare of toxoplasmosis. An article in The Villager as this was happening might have helped, versus reading about it after the fact. I’m not faulting The Villager, just wondering how “public” this all was.

It also looks like the cats’ area was pretty set off — there was grass and a gate. It’s hard to imagine that they were really bothering anyone and that their shelters could not have remained in place, even if basement access was cut off.

It’s sad that we live in a world where humans dominate everything. Real estate and those who hold it come above everything else, and consideration for other species, their lives and the enjoyment they bring are not considered.

I hope those who made these decisions reflect on this and how things might have been handled differently. There are far too many cats on death row at the city “shelter” (Animal Care & Control); dozens are killed almost every night due to abandonment of some kind, as well as the fallacy of “too little space.” Someday, New York City’s shelter system will be “no kill”; but, until that day, this goes on.

Perhaps in memory of Scrappy and the others, some of these cats and kittens now sentenced to death at A.C.C. could be relocated to Broome St. Alley and given a good home to continue the tradition of caring for Lower East Side cats and appreciating what they add to all our lives.Cathryn Swan

Editor’s note: The Villager, in fact, did start reporting on the struggle to save the Broome St. Alley cats more than a month before their eventual demise. Despite initially having reached out to The Villager asking that an article be written, the cat advocates subsequently turned skittish. In short, they asked that the article be held, fearing that its publication would wreck their tenuous negotiations with management to save the cats. As a result, the article was not published until the cat advocates gave the O.K. — which was after the feral cat colony was lost.

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